1/48 SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

Well, Projo 1 is done and dusted  and it seems I may have time for Projo 2so looking through stash at Chez Pappy I pulled this one out:

 

 

 

The box was absolutely filled to the brim with styrene, half the kit contents comprise stores, however although this may seem generous, as I will describe later, all is not what it seems.....

 

Kitty Hawk kits seemed to have developed a reputation for fine detail and difficult construction in equal measure. Their Jaguar kits in particular have a fearsome reputation for being a difficult build and whilst I agree that KH kits can be complex and require careful dry fitting an clean up, I think that the kits I have experience with so far have actually fit very well however, in this case, the reputation may be well deserved.

 

The problem seems to be that KH have intended that all the 'features' such as the two complete engines, the two port avionics bays and the main gear well/speed brake doors are all designed to be displayed open. The difficulties begin if the builder wishes to have these panels closed as the fit is less than stellar.

 

Naturally, my jet will be in flight, although I was thinking of a take-off configuration as I want to show off the complex landing gear.

 

I have made some small progress today, installing the kit supplied PE to the cockpit side consoles as well as adding a few extra bits and pieces from reference pics. No point going crazy though as the canopy will be down

 

 

It looks nice but I am not sure that there will be sufficient relief to pick up the edges during drybrushing. The kit tub is too shallow. This is one of the reasons I decided for an in-flight configuration (the other is that it is just dead cool!) and unless you want to shell out for a resin cockpit, it will be very obvious with an open canopy. KH must have realised the problem and fudged a fix by shortening the height of the ejection seat. The seat headbox also looks weird and a little undersized, probably to accommodate the too shallow cockpit tub

 

 

If you were to use a resin seat, it would be too tall, even with the canopy open.

 

Jag cockpits, like Model T fords come in every colour as long as they are black! with the canopy down and a pilot installed, I think I can live with the kit supplied detail which is otherwise very good,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

So  a little more work on the cockpit today

 

 

 

The avionics panels were installed and scrap styrene added behind to bolster the covers to ensure they will not come adrift during the subsequent handling and the cockpit sides were painted up

 

 

 

Finally, the kit u/c bays were assembles and although they fit quite well, they are a little lacking in greeblies compared to their resin counterparts

 

 

 

thanks for looking,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jabba]

A good start with the cockpit and I like the idea to keep the open panels shut and flush with the airframe. Those resin parts do look a lot better than the kit ones.

[Pappy]

2 hours ago, Jabba said:

A good start with the cockpit and I like the idea to keep the open panels shut and flush with the airframe. Those resin parts do look a lot better than the kit ones.

 

Thanks Jabba,

 

Some more prep done now. A LOT of stuff will need to be crammed inside the fuselage halves so this will mean that I will be deviating from the KH construction sequence. The order of the construction sequence steps don't make sense anyway as they would have you add delicate, easily breakable parts before major construction is completed, so I will just do my own thing.

 

Since my jet will be flying the the cannon bay doors will need to be closed. I added the cannon bays interiors to the fuselage interiors as I think this stiffens the fuselage and also gives the cannon bay doors a little more support

 

 

Resin elements of the main undercarriage set were added next.

 

 

Finally, I have started assembling the wings.

 

The KH Jag provides separate high lift devices compared to the ancient Airfix/Heller kits, as well as crisper panel detail. Unfortunately, the wing is also the source of one of the early criticisms of the kit. Here are the assembled but unmodified wings. There is a small gap that required filling but this was not a major problem. The issue is the wing leading edge (I have not yet installed the LE flap) which features a strange 'kink'  centered on the inner pylon hardpoint

 

 

The  wing LE should be a continuous straight line after the curved inner portion.  It should be a fairly easy correction to simply sand the kink out and re profile the LE to an aerodynamic section

 

thanks for looking

 

Pappy

 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Pappy

[exdraken]

Very nice start!

 

Be careful, the pylons and weapons provided speak in strong 🇫🇷 accent!

[Pappy]

11 hours ago, exdraken said:

Very nice start!

 

Be careful, the pylons and weapons provided speak in strong 🇫🇷 accent!

Ack Werner I alluded to this in the first post, I will address this in a later post

 

G'day people,

 

So, today was spent working on the wings. RAF Jags were not initially fitted with the overwing missile launchers, even though this was a feature of the  Jaguar 'International' (export) variant) however, the need to carry defensive missiles without sacrificing A/G ordnance carrying capability during DS meant that RAF Jags were fitted with them.

 

KH supply the overwing adapters with the LAU-7 rails as a single moulded item. I decide to use the kit adapter since they fit the kit wings very well but to replace the kit launchers with replacement items sourced from the gash box as the KH LAU-7s look a bit chunky and featureless.

 

 

The original item on the top left with its launcher separated below. The donor LAU-7 also required separating from its parent adapter

 

 

The two items were then mated together

 

 

Whilst the glue was drying, I straightened out the kink in the wing LE with some sanding and re-profiled the LE. The overwing adapters could now be attached to the wing upper surface.

 

 

I would normally leave  adding the launchers to the end of painting but since the Jag will be mostly one colour including the missile adapter and launcher, I opted to do this now

 

Turning my attention back to the fuselage, it seems that 90% of the work in building this kit will involve getting all the internal 'furniture' assembled, painted and installed. As mentioned previously, KH supply both engines as full units. You have to build these up as there is no other structure to attach attach the 'zorsts to. The donks are added to their own bay which in turn is installed into the fuselage cavity. The basic structure looks accurate enough but it is missing the myriad plumbing and other gubbins to look convincing. If you don't intend to leave the engine access doors open you don't need to paint the engines at all apart from the i exhaust nteriorbut I painted it up the engine bay anyway for practice. I will add the burner cans at the end once all the painting is completed

 

 

Same goes for the donks, the basic core looks okay shapewise but they are massively  over simplified compared to the real deal.  Again I painted them just to practice with engine colours but you could get away with leaving them unpainted if you wanted to

 

 

Satisfied, the donks were added to their new home and are ready for installation into the fuselage

 

 

thanks for looking

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Pappy

[desert falcon]

Those engines are looking ready to be fired up !!

[Pappy]

7 hours ago, desert falcon said:

Those engines are looking ready to be fired up !!

 

Thanks DF but if you compare these engines to pics of the real thing  (plenty of pics available in the BM reference section) you will soon realise just how bare they are.

 

G'day people,

 

So more work on the wings.

 

The leading edge flap is too wide. I corrected this by cutting id down by half and sanding the underside thinner. This was then attached to the wing

 

 

The modified one on the left. here is a closer look at the corrected wing. The wing spoilers fit perfectly into their recesses, it was almost a shame not to have these deployed. Note one side has delicate rivet detail etched into the surface whilst the other side is plain, keep your eyes peeled.

 

 

I have added all I can to each fuselage half to sand and blend in before the two halves are attached including attaching each forward fuselage half to its corresponding aft section. This may seem like a pretty obvious thing to do but the destructions would have you wait until nearly the end of the build before adding the forward fuselage section to the rear fuselage. I think that would just be a massive stitch-up. Whilst this pitfall would most likely be avaoided by an experienced builder, newbies could easily fall into this trap, beware!

 

Prior to starting this build, I had read some build revues in which the intakes were problematic. KH slits the intakes into two 'L-shaped' halves with the joins at the corners. I found that the inner corners needed to be sanded down a little to avid a large step. even so, I still wound up with a slight step on both sides. It is manageable but I think if I had been more patient I could have avoided it altogether. A small dab of filler was all that I needed to fair the intakes in. I will need to go over the auxiliary  intake door panel lines as they lost  a little depth while sanding the join

 

 

One improvement here over the Airfix/Heller (AFH) kit is that the aux doors are moulded flush, which is correct for an unpowered  jet, or one traveling quick. The AFH kit has these slightly drawn inwards as per a ground running jet.

 

I also found I needed to sand the inside edges of the cannon fairings down to get a nice fit as they were very tight otherwise and would not sit flush

 

 

I spent most of today painting up the u/c bays, to say these are an improvement over the kit items would be a massive understatement!

 

 

 

These just clicked into place, it was very satisfying to have something just fit for a change! The main  u/c doors on Jags only open when the gear cycles, so you would not be incorrect  in having the main doors shut (as per the AFH kit) however, it is also typical for ground staff to manually open the doors after shutdown to perform maintenance and inspections. I would add the bays even if you intend to have the u/c doors closed as, like the cannon bays, it stiffens the fuselage. This is vitals as the two halves do not want to meet without some serious persuasion. On my kit at least, I find it is worse than the old Airfix 1/48 Buccaneer. The worst section is mid fuselage, both upper and lower sections.

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited February 21, 2021 by Pappy

[Jabba]

A lot of work in those U/C bays, plus a lot of work to get the wings correct. Well done with this and it is such a pity that you have to do it on a very modern kit.

[Dansk]

WOW those gear bays are amazing!

[Pappy]

On 2/23/2021 at 5:56 AM, Jabba said:

A lot of work in those U/C bays, plus a lot of work to get the wings correct. Well done with this and it is such a pity that you have to do it on a very modern kit.

 

On 2/23/2021 at 6:08 AM, Dansk said:

WOW those gear bays are amazing!

 

G'day gents,

 

Thany you very much, but to be fair, I didn't really do any work to the bays, I just painted them, but they are a massive improvement over the KH bays which have the basic shape correct. The wings are a dissappointmnet, especially as you say it is a relatively recent kit and there is an abundance of reference material readily available. My solution is not 100% accurate either but it looks closer to the appearance than the unmodified state

 

Pappy

Edited August 11, 2022 by Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

The fuselage innards are starting to look very busy now. The resin gear wells were added and I am happy to say that these simply clicked into place, a simple drop fit replacement for the KH items.

Although KH supply two complete engines, they made no attempt at representing the intake ducts beyond the air intake parts. looking down the intakes into the fuselage you could make out the various internal 'furniture' added to the fuselage interior. The kit engine faces are just visible but sit lower and behind the wheel bay wells and are heavily obscured. As my jet will be in flight, I cannot simply add some intake bungs to hide the lack of intake ducts, so I solved the issue by adding some resin intake ducts. the instructions indicate that they may require some sanding to fit - no kidding!!

 

 

I needed to really thin down the front end paying particular attention to the inboard and upper sides. I also found that the engine compressor faces supplied with the resin intake ducts did not fit especially well and that the ducts were a little too long lengthwise and fouled with the engine bay assembly. I trimmed off a few mm from the back of the intake ducts to clear the engine assembly. I also reamed out the back end of the intake ducts to get the aft opening back to a circular shape. Once happy that everything would fit, I trimmed down the resin compressor faces  and added these to some scrap plastic sheet and painted them up. I could also have just used the kit supplied compressor faces from the engines as it looks like the resin parts are based on the kit items.

 

 

These were now added to the back of the ducts, which in turn were added to the fuselage without fouling the engine assembly

 

 

The kit is nearly ready to be closed up

 

thanks for looking

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Pappy

[Hockeyboy76]

Great work Pappy. Looks amazing. 

[Jabba]

That is a lot packed into those fuselage halves. Hopefully will not stop it going together without too much of a struggle.

[RMP2]

Nice to see another one being tackled and tamed.

Theyre not that bad with a bit of sand paper and patience. The pylons, ordnance and poor/missing decals I found far more annoying.

 

Certainly looks like youre showing it who is boss, looking forward to further progress and the finished article

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

Thank you to everyone that followed along and left comments but I am calling a halt to this build for now,

 

Pappy

Edited August 11, 2022 by Pappy